Sophomore Taryn Kramer decided to take on something besides swimming during the winter sports season this year: she became the sole member of Ligonier’s diving team. After her first season of hard work and placing high in the District 6 and 9 Championships, she cannot wait to compete again next year.
A former gymnast, Taryn loves diving because it reminds her of her tumbling days. She started diving over the summer of 2009.
“Diving is a lot of flips and it lets me do the stuff I miss doing from gymnastics. The only difference is I’m jumping off a board,” Taryn said.
Due to the fact that the Ligonier YMCA does not have a diving board, Taryn dives at Derry High School. She has practice every Tuesday and Thursday, instructed by Derry’s diving coach Trish Brownley.
Every Sunday morning, Taryn’s parents drive her to the University of Pittsburgh main campus to dive with the college swimmers at Trees Pool.
At practice, Taryn and the college divers work on the technique of each dive. The first half hour of practice is spent on abdominal workouts. Then, they move to a trampoline the divers call a “dry board” and practice their dives.
The trampoline simulates one going off the diving board, only the diver is not diving into the water. For example, if Taryn is working on her inward-one flip, she would go through all the motions on the trampoline. After doing it each time, her coach evaluates her and Taryn does the dive until it is almost perfect.
After perfecting them on the “dry board,” the diver moves to the actual diving board to perfect that particular dive’s technique. They also try out new flips off the diving board if they have time.
Due to the lack of diving facilities at the YMCA, Taryn practices and competes with Derry. However, she still represents Ligonier.
With this year being her first in diving, Taryn was extremely nervous when the time came around for the District 6 and 9 Championships. Up until that point, all of her dives had been exhibition.
Her dives did not count for points because Ligonier is a District 6 and 9 team and Derry competes in District 7. They would only count if she was competing against divers from schools that are in Ligonier’s District.
During the competition, each diver completes 11 dives. Each dive is individually scored out of nine. In the end, all of the scores are tallied up and the diver with the most points wins.
“I made myself sick I was so nervous. There’s so much pressure because the whole room’s silent. Everyone’s eyes were on me whenever I dived, and the judges didn’t miss a thing,” Taryn said.
She placed 10th out of 12 in the competition with a score of 240.05.
“Taryn worked really hard at Districts and did really well, especially since it was her first year. We’re really proud of her,” her father Don Kramer said.
The scoring in each dive depends on several things. It consists of three main elements of the dive: the approach, flight and entry. The six other factors that involve the finer details of the dive are the platform selected, height the diver gets off the board, distance from the board, body position, number of rotations and revolutions upon completion of the dive and the angle of entry into the water.
“Taryn’s best dive is her front one full twist. She got eight out of nine on it,” Coach Brownley said.
Taryn has also discovered her favorite dive. She loves doing her inward-one flip. She balances on the edge of the diving board with her heels over the edge and does a front flip going into the board.
She is also hoping to become a good enough to dive in college.
“It would be so cool, but I really need to work hard to get into a good school and hopefully get a diving scholarship,” Taryn said.
Taryn is eager for next year’s diving season. Diving with Derry during the season and with the Pitt divers year-round allows her to improve herself every day. She hopes to make it all the way to the state competition next year.